


Making a note here...

by Sweety_Mutant



Series: What if? The Great Escape [7]
Category: The Great Escape (1963)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Friendship, Gen, Movie Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-03-02 22:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2828468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweety_Mutant/pseuds/Sweety_Mutant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Danny's claustrophobia had prevented him and Willie from escaping?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making a note here...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mad_Amethyst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Amethyst/gifts).



> Disclaimer: They're not mine ^^ just making fun and putting them back where they belong when I'm finished.
> 
>  
> 
> * A commission for Mad_Amethyst, who asked me to do a fic where Willie and Danny did not escape because of his claustrophobia, and how this would change their relationship. Not a slash fic. I must say that since an AU, I used bits of real life thingies without shame. :p
> 
> *And I also used bits of a song. Without even realizing it in the first place ^^' (I only realized it when I was beta reading myself) I decided to keep it that way ^^
> 
>  
> 
> * the / means the beginning and end of a flashback.
> 
> *contain spoilers
> 
> * Please forgive me for any mistakes I'm not a native English speaker.

 

 

 

* * *

For years after the war's end, when he finally got home, Willie asked himself the same question: How could it go this wrong?

Everything had spiraled downwards since the night he had caught Danny trying to escape alone. The night before they would all try to go out in a big damn attempt... Five years ago.

/He had never imagined his friend could be claustrophobic, not after everything that he'd done. Willie tried to calm his friend like he would have a trapped animal. Something had snapped inside Danny, he could see it in his eyes, in his stance… but Willie had been pretty sure they'd find a way out… Danny had always seemed so strong. The strong one and the porcelain emotional one. The Tunnel Kings. Always together, as close as different. But things had been turned upside down. The broad, compact, brown ex-coal miner, twice survivor of Warsaw's bombings had been reduced to a nervous and emotional wreck; leaning heavily on the blonde, baby-blue eyed young singer. As long as they stayed together, everything was going to be alright. They'd escape, succeed and go home. They'd have their happy ending.

That night was restless for the both of them, but they tried to not show anything when under Mac and Roger's hard gazes the morning after.

They didn't speak about the incident, too busy with the last details of the plans. Yet, as the H hour ticked by, Willie felt an uneasiness creep and coil itself in his chest, a feeling of dread that had nothing to do with the familiar pre-escape tension.

It was once inside the tunnel,  _their_  tunnel, that the problems really begun. Danny had a panic attack resulting in him leaving the tunnel, Willie just behind him, holding on to their promise. They would get out. Just a few minutes to calm down, then they would get out… But the few minutes turned into an hour, Danny telling him to go, that he could not. Not anymore, not ever. Willie refused. Saying he would stick with him. 'Till he got better. Forever.

Then they heard the shots. The screams. It was over.

Drowned in the frantic moves of their fellow POWs –burn the evidence, get rid of the civilian clothes, go back to the huts, did they killed them?- Willie took Danny by the hand and dragged him to their hut as 104 was invaded by guards. He didn't notice the light going out of Danny's eyes as they waited for the morning in their beds, to wound up in tension, worry, and for one of them sorrow; to find sleep.

They had heard the exact number of escapees at roll call. One hundred and two. Less than half of what Roger had planned, but still a huge success.

"Too bad we couldn't get out. Next time I guess." Whispered Willie, grinning.

He had glanced at Danny, only to find him expressionless and drawn back. The Pole had not talked to him since the night before, when the tunnel had been discovered, and Willie laid a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder. He could not read Danny's eyes anymore and it bothered him. Maybe he should give him time; maybe he should seek him out?

That night, as Willie was falling asleep, Danny told him, his voice muffled by the mattress

"I'm sorry. For everything."

Willie jumped from his bed to get closer to his friend.

"Don't be sorry. None of this is your fault. Every man can be afraid. You don't have to apologize… we'll have another chance!"

"I… I don't know…"

These were the last words Willie heard him say for a few days.

Danny had never been the talkative type, but he was now as silent and grim as a headstone. Every time Willie tried to speak to him he turned his gaze down, bowing his head and remained silent.

This silence, which had been warm and friendly in the past, was as choking as a cave-in.

A day felt like a month, with Danny avoiding him. One day, a little less than a week after the escape, Willie pushed his friend against a wall – without realizing how similar this was to a certain night a week ago- to get a reaction, anything. Danny, still physically superior, broke free in a second, but didn't even met Willie's eyes.

"I'm sorry… I know you must be…" began the Pole. Willie cut him like he had read his thoughts:

"I'm not even angry! Why are you pushing me back every time I try to help you?"

"It's my fault you're still here…"

"No it is not! I could have gone; I choose to remain here with you. Because I'm your friend!"

"… I never asked you to stay."

That remark –barely audible, as if Danny was already regretting it- hurt Willie like red-hot iron. He wanted to scream, to slap some sense into the man sitting beside him…

But he only whispered back: "Fine" before standing up and leaving the relative comfort of their room. He wasn't fine. How could he be?  _I never asked you to stay_ …The past week of avoidance, of apologizing… maybe that's what Danny had tried to tell him… Three years of friendship, for that? Willie asked himself the same question over and over. He felt a rancorous knot form itself in his heart.  _If he is too good for me, fine._

Another week went by. Danny and Willie were still avoiding each other, neither talking nor looking at the other, yet excruciatingly close. Then one day, they heard by the SBO that some of the escapees were to be brought back. But that there were also more dreadful news. Something changed in the air.

Two gone. Seventy executed. The names still making his head spin. Hearing it had broken something in Willie. For the first time in two weeks, he and Danny exchanged a knowing look. Of disbelief and pain.

The morning after, Danny spoke for the first time since their dispute. In hushed, slow tones, but with a new light in his eyes. The one that had abandoned Willie's heart the day before.

"I'm going out."

It hit Willie like a kick in the guts. He couldn't believe these words.

"You can't?!" was his only answer, reaching his lips faster than his breath.

"Yes I can. And I intend to as soon as possible."

"They will kill you! They killed everybody!"

"They should have. With the others…" Danny's voice was no more than a whisper now. It ended their conversation. They spent the day away from each other like every other day, but later this evening, while eating, Willie said:

"You're wrong. They should not kill anyone. You were not serious this morning?"

Danny didn't bother to answer, and only acquiesced. Long seconds passed, then he looked intently at Willie, studying him like it was their first meeting.

"No." answered Willie. He had sensed the question before Danny had even opened his mouth. Sensed it since the morning. And it frightened him. More than the war, the machine guns in the guard towers.

"You're afraid…" whispered Danny.

"No I am not… I am downright terrified! Like you were… They killed seventy people! I don't wanna die." There were so much things Willie wanted to tell his friend. Why are you talking to me now? Why are you telling me such things?! I don't want to hear them now… Maybe before… for two weeks, he had felt invisible, wondering what he did wrong, and now it seemed to him that Danny acted like nothing had happened.

When Willie went to bed, he saw Danny resting, his eyes closed but still fully clothed. He hesitated a few seconds before climbing to his bed without a single glance to Danny. He couldn't find sleep, but did not make a sound. He counted two hours of silence and then heard Danny fuss below him. He knew exactly what his friend was doing but remained quiet, his back turned. He felt a burning itch to turn over as Danny looked at him before leaving the barrack without a sound.

_You may not have asked me to stay, but don't dare to ask me to go._

He didn't sleep that night. He became restless and cutting, a lonely figure despite his young age. Inside, Willie nurtured bitter thoughts, replaying the last spring over and over in his head. He had lost his only real friend. Why? Willie couldn't answer himself. What had he done wrong? He had only tried to comfort, understand… And had been met by dead eyes and silence. He couldn't care less when the other POWs told him of the Russian troop approach. The war was about to end, yet he had stopped fighting his war long ago.

Though recent, his rescue from the snow by the Allies was a blur in Willie's mind. Too much information, too much walk, he was so numb, so starved… When the soldiers told him it was February, 1945, he didn't believe them. Nearly a year… They told him it was typical, to feel disoriented after a long period of isolation from the outside world.

On the boat that was to take them survivors back to England, an American – He had been in the camp too; his face was familiar though Willie couldn't put a name on him - slapped his back and told him to cheer up. They had succeeded! This bloody war was now over… The Allies had won! He nodded, smiled absently, but didn't partake in the festivities.

On his first night back in London, he cried. It was too much. Since he had left home, at the beginning of this damned war, he had tried to be strong. He had killed people, survived a plane crash, dug a dozen tunnels, been buried alive in more cave-ins than he could remember... For what? Why where everybody had seen a victory, had he felt so defeated? Why so much pain? They had promised!  _If we succeed_ … but not enough? Too much?  _If we're still alive…_  Didn't that count? Was Danny even still alive? _Out of here…_  Why do humans have fears?  _We will live happily ever after_ …

He had drunk much that night. Too much for his weakened stated, according to the military doctors.

When released by the doctors and the administration, Willie at sat in his own apartment, thankfully spared by the bombings, and wondered. What could he do now? He didn't want to be a soldier anymore, and hadn't the heart for singing again. Maybe he should pay a visit to his family. His parents would be happy to see him, and their little suburban cottage would help him recover from the war.

Touching the earth in his mother's garden did him as much good as bad. It reminded him of its warm and lethal embrace, when they were thirty feet below the surface… Tons of earth and sand had brought him and Danny closer, yet this very earth had taken his friend from him.

He spent months kneeling in the small garden. Trying to understand. Why had Danny rejected his friendship? He had done nothing wrong… If he had, he couldn't recall it.

His mother said he should stop thinking about it. That it would eat him alive. That he should stop blaming this foreign man and try to live. /

Five years went by, slower than a Silesian winter.

Willie was back in London, doing nothing beside brooding and remembering the war. He still saw old friends, from before the war, and went out with girls on double dates, but nothing was the same.

Some days, he still woke up in cold sweat, feeling the earth suffocate him or worse, Danny's parting glance on his back.

One day, after taking a bus to get as far away as he could from everything, anything, he saw a ghost in a café on the street. He hesitated a few seconds, then got out on the next stop and ran back to the café.

Breathless and more alive than he had been since long ago, he combed his hair with a hand and said his voice hesitant:

"Hello Sir."

The old man facing him glanced up from his newspapers at the sound of Willie's voice, and once the surprise gone, smiled fondly.

"William Dickes. If that isn't a surprise!"

Rupert Ramsey, now an old Air Commodore, invited Willie to sit beside him to share tea and memories.

Their conversation went smoothly, from weather to politics, stirring toward news of their still alive ex comrades. Finishing his tea, Ramsey asked with a worried look on his face:

"If I may enquire… Are you still friends with Danny Velinsky? You seemed joined at the hip back then…"

Willie winced. It was the question he feared the most. The one he didn't want to answer… He was afraid of what his mouth would say.

"No… we… after… we became estranged."

"I' m sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

It was the truth. But now that he begun, Willie felt like the bitter knot in his chest was disentangling itself. And something in the man before him told him he could go on and spill his heart's content.

"It's okay. I guess… We… It's the first time I've admitted it… We just stopped talking, you know? Like we couldn't understand each other anymore… There was so much guilt… I tried! I think he tried too… But it's too late now. You remember, when he escaped again in April 1944? I couldn't follow… I was too afraid. And angry. I blamed him, I still do, for rejecting me after… Well… This separated us and… We never saw each other again. I want to but… I never do. "

Ramsey seemed lost in thoughts, and looked sharply at Willie before saying:

"I don't know what to say. What you told me make sense but… A few months back, I was at the Hospital, you know for my foot, I have to go there often, and I saw him there…"

"Danny?"

Rupert acquiesced "Yes. He was there to accompany his wife to an exam. they had a child with them and a second was on his way. The eldest was named after you."

The words stuck Willie like a lightning bolt. Every tiny bit of memory he had with Danny exploded in his brain, every feeling went flying. He couldn't remember the end of the conversation, but hoped afterwards that he had been polite enough. Had he looked as shocked as he still felt?

He was sure the words " new try" had erupted somewhere in the discussion, but he couldn't recall. All he knew was that his former best friend had named his son after him. Named. His. Son. After. Him. And that he, stupid, had passed five years blaming Danny for being afraid and desperate. Blaming him instead of himself…

Finding Danny's address hadn't been hard. His name was not common, and Willie found him in the same neighborhood he had said to live in during the war. He scribbled the address on a spare piece of paper, and stared at it all day. It seemed unreal to him. He was so close to see his friend, yet he still felt so far away…

Some days, Willie would walk with the address in his hand, feeling like he had to give another chance… To keep on trying. But he always turned back, and remembered.

He couldn't find the strength to go. He never had it. Not back in the Stalag, even less now.

He felt too much guilt. He had had no rights to act towards Danny like he had. No rights to even think his best friend could bear a grudge against him. Even less to do so himself, and confuse fear for anger. But now what? He owed him an apology. A five years late apology. He was late. And afraid. So afraid… That Danny might not recognize him if he saw him again? That he would recognize him, but choose to ignore him? Because if he was Danny, that's what he would probably do… Ignore the one who misunderstood, the one who said he was your friend. But fled.

Even the small voice of hope in the back of him mind, telling him to be brave, that he had nothing to fear, went unheard as Willie drowned himself in guilt and self-loathing.

Ten years passed that way. Living on his small RAF pension, trying to forget everything while blaming himself, in the arms of temporary birds.

One day, Willie had to go to the RAF administration to fill forms for the renewal of his allowance. There, he met Eric, one of the few who had initially made it back to England. Now he was a Royal Navy Vice Admiral, all beautiful in his tailored uniform and perfectly groomed coiffure.

They politely shook hands and talked and talked a few minutes. Willie saw his ex- fellow POW's uneasiness, seeing him in this unkempt and disheveled state.

Eric told him he was here to fill in a few details about the funeral of Ramsey, dead of complications after a surgery. The news of his once commanding officer's death saddened him. He remembered Ramsey as a respected and decent man, in a tired sort of way. But on his way back home, Willie wasn't grieving but remembering. A conversation ten years old that was now replaying itself in its every details in his mind. It had then removed all the bitterness that had plagued his heart, yet replaced it with guilt and regret.

And life had gone on. Without him. Deep inside, Willie felt he needed to set the course of his life right now. There had been no sense crying over every mistake. He had been late too long.

Once home, Willie searched the thing he needed the most right now. An old, square, battered, brownish piece of paper. Despite the years, he had kept Danny's address. Now and then it laid on his desk, pinned on the wall, or amongst the bills… A note half forgotten, half reminded by his girlfriends' questioning looks. When he found it, under his bed, the night had since long fallen. He grabbed a bottle of whatever alcohol was in the fridge, put on his old jacket and went out. The walk to Danny's neighborhood took him two hours and a few wrong turns. When he finally got there, an old-looking but in pretty good shape workingmen's block of flats, he sat on the emergency stairs and drank. With liquid bravery in his veins and speeches fantasized in his mind, Willie watched the sun rise on London. Somewhere, a bell rang seven times.

He got up, stretched his legs and finished his last cigarette. A hurried woman walked past him, giving him a sidelong glance before entering the building. She held the door for him, and he babbled his thanks. They took the lift, and he got off two floors after her.

He was now in a dimly lit corridor, with beige walls and a beige tiled floor and light brown false wood doors… He found the flat n°28, floor six. A quick look at the nameplate – Velinsky Daniel, Jill, William and Joyce- reassured him as much as it terrified him.

Willie took a deep breath, the smell of sanitizer heavy in the air, pushed back his fear, closed his eyes and knocked at the door. A few second later, he heard footsteps and the door opened. He was now face to face with a lanky teenager who looked at him quizzically, chocolate on his mouth.

"Hello sir, what do you want?"

"… I…"

The boy lifted a black eyebrow "Yes?"

Yes, thought Willie before answering, this was a triumph. Now was time for the less sad ever after.

"Is your father home?"

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Fin
> 
> I hope you all liked the story, and particularly you Mad_Amethyst, 'cause it sure was a lot of work ^^ so I hope the fic met your requirements!^^
> 
> Anyway, I don't know why, but I'm not completely satisfied with this fic, so I really look forward to the reviews ^^ (Sorry again for the mistakes, I'll be proofreading again in the future, here is a cookie for your patience :D)


End file.
